The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series) (55 page)

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Authors: John R. Maxim

BOOK: The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series)
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“You will understand,” he said, “if I am less than comfortable having this discussion as a group. Especially in front of two people whose interest is no more than—peripheral/’
“Sir, I trust them both. We're here to find out whether we trust you.”
Kaplan stiffened. Fuller did not.
“I'm not offended,” he said. “You have concluded, I gather, that I had foreknowledge of Mr. Clew's—invasion. I had none. I was in Brussels at the time.”
Bannerman had played Roger Clew's message. He had not returned the call.
“What will you do about Roger?”
”I have his resignation. After this discussion, I will decide whether to accept it.”
“Why would you do that?”
Fuller spread his hands as if the answer were obvious.
“If you'll forgive me,” Bannerman told him, “you should not accept it and I don't think you will. Not while he knows about the Ripper Effect. The same applies to Mr. Hagler.”
Fuller raised his cup to his lips. He sipped slowly. He dared not look at Kaplan. “The Ripper Effect, you say.”
“Mr. Fuller”—Bannerman let out a sigh—“if we're wasting each other's time, we can leave now.”
He sipped again and swallowed. “Forgive me,” he said. “Do I gather that both Mr. Lesko and this young lady are familiar with that—exercise?”
Bannerman looked at his watch.
Irwin Kaplan cleared his throat. “We're not trying to be coy,” he said to Bannerman. “Clew told us you know. We just don't know how much and we didn't figure you'd tell—” He gestured vaguely in the direction of Lesko and his daughter.
“I'll say again”—Bannerman filled his cup—”I trust them. I trust you, Mr. Kaplan, because Lesko says I can and because you've been straight with me. But only within limits. I appreciate that your first loyalty is to Mr. Fuller.”
“That's not true.” Kaplan tapped his fingers against his chest. “My first loyalty is right here. They can have my job any time they want.”
Bannerman studied him. “But you'd rather keep it?”
“I'd rather do it. That's not the same thing.”
“How would you feel about working with me?”
“Can I ask you first how much Lesko knows about the Ripper Effect?”
“He's seen it. I've explained it to him.”
“Lesko?” Kaplan asked. “Would you use it?”
“Yeah, Irwin. I'm going to.”
“Then, no offense,” he said to Bannerman, “I'd feel better about working with him.” “No offense taken, Mr. Kaplan.” Again, Bannerman glanced at his watch. “Mr. Fuller? Could I ask where your loyalties are?”
“They have not often been questioned, Mr. Bannerman.”
“They certainly don't extend to Roger Clew or Harry Hagler. Are you ready to tell me the truth about that?”
“Which truth would you like?”
“Did you set them up? To be killed by me?”
“No.”
“What did you do, Mr. Fuller?”
”I tested them.”
“They're both good men, you know,” Fuller said. He was on his feet, pacing the room. He seemed drawn to the IBM workstation on the stand beside his desk. “And you are correct. I do not want their resignations. But if you tell them what is said here today, they will surely leave of their own accord.”
Bannerman waited.

“That would be a waste. They are, in their positions, what Mr. Kaplan here is in his. Entirely dedicated. Unselfish. Like Mr. Kaplan, they are also frustrated. But
unlike Mr.
Kaplan, those men tend to be buccaneers. I had to know—” He stopped himself, pausing once more at the IBM machine.

“How much of the program have you seen, Mr. Bannerman?”
Bannerman hesitated. “Enough, I think.”
“But you won't tell how you found access to it?”
“No. I won't.” Nor would he mention that, in his pocket, was a silver lead-lined envelope containing another disk, handed to him that morning by Yuri Rykov. “Jibril,” Rykov had said to him. “This is how it can be done.” Bannerman had been tempted, more than once, to throw it away.
“You're aware, however,” Fuller was saying, “that it has other applications beyond terrorism and drug trafficking.”
Bannerman nodded. “It can work against any criminal organization, including corporations.”
“Against corporations,” Fuller corrected him, “whether they are criminal or not. That application begins to stretch the point, don't you think?”
”I would think. Yes.”
”I had to know two things. First, given such a weapon, how far would Roger go? Would he step over the line? Where, indeed,
is
the line?”
“And the second?”
“How far Mama's Boy would go.”
“So you had Roger watched.”
“Every step of the way. I think you know that, Paul.”
He did. The two in the bar. “And you wired his apartment.”
“Only after Irwin came to me. He'd had a meeting with the others. He feared that they were about to cross that line.”
“When was that?”

“Late January. A few days after we—um—lost Palmer Reid. When Irwin learned of a supposed DEA tape that no one in the DEA knew anything about, that business about the car bombs and Westport, he felt sure he saw their hand in it. On the chance that your Jamaican friend might have actually gone through with it, we decided that you should be alerted. We chose to do so indirectly through Mr. Lesko and his former colleagues.”

“Why didn't you simply stop it?”
“The truth? To see how you'd respond.”
“Another test.”
“Yes.”

“Was it the first, Mr. Fuller? Or did you test me as well when you learned that Susan and I were going to Switzerland?” Bannerman checked the time.

”I—don't get your meaning.”
The telephone rang. Fuller's private line.
“It's for you,” Bannerman said.
“Hold it.” Lesko pushed to his feet. He looked into Bannerman's eyes, suspiciously. The phone kept ringing. “Suppose I get it,” he said.
“It's for Secretary Fuller.”
“Yeah—well.” Lesko stepped to the desk. He picked up the handset. The earpiece was not the kind that twisted off. Probably no dart. Still, he held it gingerly, moving it closer to his ear but keeping it pointed toward the ceiling. He heard only static.
Fuller, frowning, glared at Bannerman. “Is he in danger?” he asked.
A small shrug. “If it were me, I'd drop that thing on the floor.”
Lesko blinked. Then he felt it. The phone in his hand was becoming hot. He let it fall, then stepped away quickly. The earpiece spat flame. Only for an instant. Then it was out. Black smoke rose from the ruined carpet.
Fuller's color rose steadily. “You did that?” he said to Bannerman. “You've been in my home?”
“Someone has. Yes.” Bannerman gestured toward the painting that was Fuller's favorite. “Your security system must not be working properly. Go look at it.”
Fuller sighed. “And what will I find there, Mr. Bannerman?”
”I think it's been shorted out.”
Fuller didn't bother. He walked instead to the partially melted telephone, prodding it with the toe of his tennis shoe.
“Would this have killed me?” he asked.
Bannerman shook his head. “It was a demonstration. And a warning.”
“Against what, for God's sake.”
“Games. Too many games.” Bannerman rose to his feet. “Drive carefully, Mr. Secretary.”

 

“Hey, Bannerman. Hold it”
Kaplan's voice. Angry.
Bannerman, one hand on the car door, turned. He waited as the DEA man approached, glaring at him, one hand balled into a fist.
“Tell me something,” Kaplan said, fuming, stopping inches from his chest. “Just who in hell do you think you are?”
Susan blinked. Bannerman said nothing. He had half-expected this.
“How dare you,” the smaller man sputtered, “how
dare
you talk that way to a man like Barton Fuller?”
”Um—Irwin—” Lesko stepped forward.

Kaplan waved him off, his eyes locked on Bannerman's. “Tell me what makes you so goddamned superior.” He jerked a thumb toward the house. “No. I'll tell
you
something. Barton Fuller is an ass-breaking public servant who does his damnedest for this country and what you are is an arrogant, self-indulgent son of a bitch.”

Lesko raised his hands. Kaplan ignored him.
“You want to be left alone?” he asked. “You got it. You want Westport? It's all yours. We don't need you. For my money, we never did.”
A small nod toward Susan. Almost an apology. Kaplan turned his back and stamped toward the house.
Lesko went after him. Susan followed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-36-
No one had spoken.
Lesko, at the wheel of their rented car, retraced the route to Washington's National Airport. On his right sat Bannerman, staring ahead. Susan sat behind, a pad on her lap. Occasionally she would jot another note. Mostly, she watched Bannerman's face in the rearview mirror.
He felt her eyes and met them. He softened his expression. “Go ahead, Susan,” he said. “Ask.”
“I’ll flush this when I'm done.” She held up the pad.
“Whatever.”
Her eye followed her pen to the top of the page. What she wanted to say was not there.
“Those things Mr. Kaplan said”—she bit her lip—“you didn't deserve that.”
Bannerman only shrugged, a bit sadly. He turned toward Lesko. “You were right about him. He's a decent man.”
“Irwin? Yeah. He is.” Lesko looked at his hands. “Um, about that, what he said—”
“It's okay. Forget it.”

“Yeah, well—” Lesko grimaced. “Up to a point, he's right. You've had things pretty much your own way. He's got drug agents dying in the streets. And Fuller's got a whole world to worry about. All you got is Westport.”

Bannerman chose not to argue.
“By the way—” Susan held up her pad, signaling a change to another subject. Any subject. “What's with all this ‘Drive carefully’ lately? You also said that to Roger Clew.”
“Just a figure of speech.” And a small game of his own. They still didn't know who'd placed that bomb in Hagler's car. Might as well make use of it.
Susan twisted her mouth doubtfully. The phrase sounded suspiciously like
Don't fuck with me.
It even rhymed. But Mama's Boy doesn't say bad words.
“Okay.” Her eye returned to the top of the sheet. “What was that stunt with the phone?” Then, to her father, “And how did you know what would happen?”
Lesko didn't answer. He looked out the window. At the sky. Imagining himself aboard the next Swissair flight to Zurich.
“Just a bit of theater,” Bannerman told her. “To let him know that he could be reached as easily as he could reach me.”
“But why? What were the games?”
“Too much manipulation to suit me. And he lied about when he placed that wire on Roger's phone. Leo Ðelkin tapped it well before January. Molly says the only way the KGB device could have gone undetected is if the sweepers never thought to look for a tap on a tap.”
She said nothing for a moment. “Just before it rang, you asked him a question about the vacation we took. He turned white.”
Now Lesko was watching him.
“You think he set up Reid?” he asked. “To go after you, I mean?”
”I don't know.”
“What was the point of asking if you weren't going to wait for an answer?”
“I'm not sure. I guess I really don't want to know.”
Lesko blinked.
A human Bannerman,
he thought.
God
save us.
On the other hand, he wasn't so sure he wanted to know either. Enough was enough. One more hour, a short hop up to JFK and Elena, and he was out of here.

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